How BlackBerry Can Help You Succeed in a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Mobile Environment

The growth of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend has transformed the IT industry and notably how businesses tackle managing mobile devices brought to work by employees. As a result, IT leaders have, and still do face, rapidly evolving challenges, and must minimize risk by balancing the demands of business end users with the security of corporate data; not to mention a consistent experience for productivity. The “BYOD” conversation is one of my favorites – and I’ve run into many on both sides of the fence. Some see it as a major cost-saving opportunity, while others caution that the real cost is paid through increased risks and potential breaches in the security of data.

In any case, it’s important to develop a strategy for the inclusion of mobile devices in your business. When considering BYOD, the importance of having a rock solid strategy only increases. Here are three ways that you can partner with BlackBerry to navigate the BYOD trend:

BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 has evolved as a direct response to the needs of businesses around the world. We’ve met with CIO’s and IT administrators, and are heavily involved in the mobile landscape for business in a wide range of applications.

In an increasingly complex mobile world, BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 provides an integrated platform for IT departments and businesses to securely manage mobile devices. BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 brings together not only BlackBerry smartphones and tablets, but third party devices that employees are bringing into the workplace. In particular, network administrators can add and import iOS and Android users, create group memberships, view user and device information, manage applications, and much more.

With the recently updated BlackBerry Device Service component of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, the platform can now support up to 15,000 BlackBerry 10 smartphones on a single server. This scalability can help your IT department lower management costs and ultimately decrease the total cost of ownership for your EMM solution and BlackBerry 10 smartphones.

In the weeks since its initial launch, BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 has received positive feedback from businesses such as Softchoice and Mobile Computing Corp. Inc. as well as from reviewers on social media. The platform has also been awarded with a 2012 Frost & Sullivan Award for Competitive Strategy Leadership for its BYOD solutions. Most importantly, BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 provides a platform for IT managers to manage, provision, and activate devices, administer controls, push mandatory applications, and more, all from a single web-based console.

Provide Business End Users with Seamless Separation of Work and Personal Data

The consumerization of business IT and the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend has created a need to manage both work and personal personas on the same mobile device. With BYOD, some businesses have enabled employees to use personal devices for work purposes. This trend increases the challenges for protecting corporate data, which can be compromised due to malware attacks, personal use applications, and other susceptibilities.

To meet the challenge, BlackBerry 10 smartphones managed by BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 have been tightly integrated with BlackBerry Balance technology, which is designed to separate corporate and personal data within the operating system. On a corporate level, businesses can now draw a defined line between work and personal perimeters, thus separating the respective applications, connections, and data. On an end user level, BlackBerry Balance provides end users with a seamless, gesture-based transition between their work and personal data:

Prepare for Future Expansion of Security Capabilities across Mobile Platforms

In addition to the existing enterprise mobility management capabilities of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, we are expanding BlackBerry’s security capabilities with Secure Work Space for iOS and Android devices. Planned for general availability in the second quarter of this calendar year, this offering extends BlackBerry security to third party devices, essentially creating a separate and secure work space to hold corporate apps, work email, calendar, contacts, and more, without the need for a third party MDM provider, a costly VPN infrastructure, or multiple vendors.

As business mobility challenges continue to evolve, BlackBerry is committed to partnering with you to navigate the complexities of the BYOD trend. Consider the steps you can take to keep your business data secure, whether it be streamlining your enterprise mobility management with BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, providing your employees with the seamless data separation of BlackBerry Balance, or getting ready to extend BlackBerry security capabilities to iOS and Android devices with Secure Work Space.

How has BlackBerry helped your business tackle the challenge of BYOD with BlackBerry, iOS, or Android devices? Share in the comments below.

About Luke Reimer

@Luke_Reimer is a Senior Marketing Manager at BlackBerry helping to design, launch, and manage enterprise marketing programs - particularly concerning content across digital mediums. Beyond spreading BlackBerry goodness in enterprise communities, you can find Luke cooking up a storm, out on his motorcycle (when Canadian weather allows), or digging into a good science fiction book.

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